ALARM­ING IS­SUE

While en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists said that de­bris dump­ing es­pe­cially near man­grove ar­eas is a ram­pant is­sue in Navi Mum­bai and the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion needs to be stern in deal­ing with it and the civic body should pub­li­cise their helpline num­bers more ef­fec­tively. San­deep Ban­gia, mem­ber of Navi Mum­bai En­vi­ron­ment Preser­va­tion So­ci­ety (NMEPS) said, “De­bris dump­ing is a civic men­ace which needs to be dealt with strongly. Of­fend­ers get away by dump­ing de­bris at night or at iso­lated places. Al­though af­ter NMEPS fil­ing the PIL against de­bris dump­ing near wet­land ar­eas, the men­ace has re­duced a bit, still more ac­tion is re­quired.”

The other two toll-free num­bers 1800222309 and 1800222310 which were launched in 2014 has how­ever re­ceived a bet­ter re­sponse.

As per the records, 51 calls were reg­is­tered in 2014 while 245 calls were reg­is­tered in 2015 and 34 calls have been reg­is­tered in 2016. Of­fi­cials how­ever said they are them­selves been ac­tive about track­ing on il­le­gal dump­ing of de­bris across the civic body ju­ris­dic­tion.